Adrift: A True Story of Love, Loss and Survival at Sea. Susea McGearhart

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СКАЧАТЬ boat. I jumped onto the dock and exhaustedly said to the woman: “Man, am I glad to be here in Rangiroa.”

      “Rangiroa? You’re not in Rangiroa. You’re in Apataki!”

      I was shocked. I leaped back on Tangaroa and went below to look at the chart. We had been set over a hundred miles southeast. What we had thought was the atoll of Ahe had actually been the atoll Takapoto, one of the atolls with no entrance.

      I had now lost all confidence in Fred. I endured the five-day passage to Tahiti seething with anger toward him. My bags were packed two days before we arrived. I was eager to jump ship and leave the Tangaroa far behind me.

      In Tahiti, I saw my friend Joey at an outside café; he told me he had signed on the schooner Sofia as a cook. I asked about Sofia. She wasn’t a luxury liner by any means, he said, having been built in 1921, but she was awesome: a 123-foot, three-masted topsail schooner that was cooperatively owned. He added that the accommodations were rugged: The head, for example, was a toilet seat mounted on a metal bowl located on the aft deck, rigged to dump overboard. The galley had four kerosene burners and one large diesel stove, and the sink pumped only saltwater. Fresh water was allowed for drinking and cooking only, not to be wasted on such frivolous things as rinsing saltwater off the dishes.

      The membership fee to join the sailing cooperative was three thousand dollars. The cooks had to pay only fifteen hundred dollars. Joey set the hook when he told me the crew of Sofia was looking for someone to fill the other part-time cook’s position. The next day I went to the schooner, applied, and got the position, becoming a permanent crewmember.

      Though primitive, Sofia did have character. She carried a crew of ten to sixteen people. Her ribs creaked of history and adventure. She was heading for New Zealand via all the South Pacific island groups. Those days on Sofia were some of the best imaginable. The freedom of being on crystal blue water while sailing a square-rigger in glorious sunshine was magic. The camaraderie of the crew was well balanced. I was able to learn my sailing and boson skills and the basics of navigation, as well as cooking and how to help organize and instruct people on the art of sailing. It was like being in one of Southern California’s greatest colleges: Sofia—U.S. “Sea.”

      Once in New Zealand we headed for a little town called Nelson, located on the northern tip of the South Island in Cook Strait.

      While our Sofia was set to stay in Nelson for more than a year for repair work, I was offered a fishing job on a boat named Pandora. She was owned and operated by a former Sofia crewmember who stopped by the ship looking for crew. I signed on for an albacore season and ended up fishing two albacore seasons and a grouper season. The money was good, and I loved the challenging life of fishing—the sea popping like popcorn, with fish on every line.

      While I was fishing, Sofia received a movie offer and the producer wanted the ship in Auckland for the filming. I had left most of my things—photos, letters, and clothes—on board, as I planned to reunite with Sofia in Auckland when the albacore season was over.

      Sofia never made it. She sank in a bad storm off the northernmost tip of the North Island of New Zealand—Cape Reinga. One woman drowned when the ship went down. The sixteen survivors were at sea in two life rafts for five days. They were finally rescued by a passing Russian freighter, which located them thanks to their last flare.

      I was at sea fishing when notified of the sinking. The boat I was on took me back to shore, and I flew to meet the Sofia crew in Wellington. All my plans had just sunk, along with an innocent young woman and a beautiful ship, with the snap of a finger. I wasn’t sure what to do next. My visa, along with other Sofia crewmembers’, had expired. I had nothing left but the clothes I had taken fishing and a few odds and ends. Even then my roots reached back to San Diego—only way back then, I had been out of the country for three years, not a mere six months, like now.

      Richard poked his head out from below and said, “ETA thirty days, love.”

      I smiled broadly, for after having looked back on my inauspicious beginnings as a professional sailor, I was comforted by the faith I felt in Richard. Richard made it worthwhile being anywhere, even in the midst of this churning sea.

      On the fifth day out of Tahiti, Hazana plowed the seas under genny and mizzen, making six knots. A deck fitting came loose and saltwater leaked onto the single-side band radio, shorting it out. The constant rolling from the northeast winds robbed us of our sleep. Our bodies were tense from deck gear clattering, the sails snapping and the rough ride.

      The next day brought a reprieve. The wind came around to our beam and pushed us easterly, which is exactly what we needed. Richard wrote “Bliss” in the logbook. We decided to ease the sails and run off a little.

      Basking in the sun, I twirled the lover’s knot ring Richard had made me. Looking across the cockpit, I let my eyes wander over his muscular body. I admired his topaz-colored hair, wavy like the sea, and his short-cropped, full beard, bleached gold from the sun.

      Richard wrote in Hazana’s logbook the next day: “I have now given up any illusions that the SE trades will ever do better than E! Now under 2nd reefed main, staysail, rolled up genny (½) & mizzen—flying 6 kts.”

      The Brooks & Gatehouse wind indicator gave out on Day Eight.

      “I hope no more of this bloody equipment breaks down,” Richard exclaimed to me.

      “Could it be corrosion, or . . . ?”

      “Sod corrosion. It’s bloody high-tech electronics. The sun may not shine every day, but when it does, at least it will tell you exactly where you are.”

      “Then sod bloody high-tech electronics!” I teased, slapping my palm on the seat locker.

      For the next three days Hazana flew. The full sails reflected the salmon-colored sun, and we enjoyed reading and relaxing, and getting some much-needed sleep.

      * * *

      Sunday, October 2, Day Eleven on Hazana, was special for Richard and me. At dusk, phosphorescence sparkled in the turquoise sea. We opened a bottle of wine and toasted our crossing the equator that day and entering the northern hemisphere.

      Ahead of us shot a geyser of silver and translucent green spray: A large pod of pilot whales was coming to play with Hazana. We connected the self-steering vane and went to the bow to watch them leap and sing their high-pitched greeting. Grasping the stainless steel pulpit, Richard leaned against my back, his bearded cheek next to mine as the whales created beautiful crisscrossing streamers of chartreuse in front of us.

      “Aren’t the whales magical, love?” he asked, fascinated.

      “Look how they surface and dive,” he said as he slowly started undulating against my backside. As Hazana rose over the next swell, he whispered in my ear, “Surface . . .” And as the bow plunged into the trough, he said, “Dive.”

      “You could be a whale, Richard,” I teased.

      “I am a whale, love. See, I’m surfacing”—he nudged me forward, the rhythm of the whales sparking something amorous in him—“and now I’m going to dive.”

      As Hazana glided down into the trough, Richard reached around and untied my pareu as he clung onto me with his knees. He knotted the material onto the pulpit with a ring knot and cupped my breasts with his warm hands. I let go of the bow pulpit and stretched СКАЧАТЬ